• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on. Normal posting/reading should now be possible.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

North Stand extension


Cant blame them for doing it, the trajectory was upward and thats a natural business decision. Might have been hasty as it was only based on a few seasons whilst we were on the biggest up in generations and the new fans had only tasted regularly winning.
Didn't hear any complaints at the time and if we hadn't already done it there'd be discussions about whether we should.
 
harryCLSsafc said:
The original capacity of the ground was going to be 34000

You must be logged on to see external links
Click to expand...
The initial approved plans were for a 29,000 seater stadium that would have been a horseshoe design with 2 open corners, they then got permission to have all corners filled in at 34,000 and then they changed the design to go out more rows than first designed and added the Premier Concourse to the plans ending up at 41-42,000.
 
number one is gary rowell said:
Just been watching premier pressures and they are talking about extending the north stand to what it is now.

I can't remember at the time (was too young to be bothered about it at the time) but were we selling out regularly? Did this extension make sense because in the fullness of time the ground would probably be the right size without it.
Click to expand...
Yes we were selling out every week and did pretty much with the larger capacity as well. Ready would have probably bought another Flo with the money at the time!
 
Should of done the whole 62'000 we had permission for. 2nd bowl all the way round. Would be wasted now but back then with our top ten finishes could of kicked on! Remember we only missed Europe by a couple of points.
 
gatopreto said:
Yes stadium was open a few years and around 2000 the north stand was increased due to demand. If we'd known we were going to be one of the worst ran clubs in the country, record breaking relegations and then go a decade after that to have the darkest period in the clubs history then they wouldn't have extended it. It was beyond the worst case scenario. But if we'd been reasonably well ran nobody would have questioned it and it would have been the correct decision.

I agree with the post above though that the team should have been prioritised first though. Got to look after the short term in this game but I'd never be too critical of an owner investing in infrastructure
Click to expand...
We were at a talk in in Peterborough when they were building the new ground and were facing relegation.
I asked a question to Bob Murray about “ why move and then get relegated? There’s no point a great new place to be in the 2nd tier. “ he went on about guaranteeing that we wouldn’t go down. Which we did.
You shouldn’t take your eye of the pitch when you’re developing the stands .
 
DiscopantsSoL said:
The initial approved plans were for a 29,000 seater stadium that would have been a horseshoe design with 2 open corners, they then got permission to have all corners filled in at 34,000 and then they changed the design to go out more rows than first designed and added the Premier Concourse to the plans ending up at 41-42,000.
Click to expand...
They were gonna build the Stadium but not put the seats in the Premier Concourse
You must be logged on to see external links
 
Peace said:
When you were mid table in prem you didnt sell out.

Plenty of 37k crowds.

Only way you sell 49k now every home game is if you are challenging for top 6 European places in prem.

You aren't selling 49k mid table in prem.
Click to expand...
Obviously you're a f***ing expert on Sunderland attendances...

We will fill it - as we'd did - with an upper half premier league team.

As for Pompey, you could never come even close to Sunderland's support, so go fuck yourself.
 
Last edited:
Paul3845 said:
Obviously you're a f***ing expert on Sunderland attendances...

We will fill it - as we'd did - with an upper half premier league team.

As for Pompey you could never come even close to Sunderland's support, so fuck off.
Click to expand...

Pompey have a bigger catchment area than Sunderland when you take into account numbers, just not the stadium capacity currently.
 
Peace said:
Pompey have a bigger catchment area than Sunderland when you take into account numbers, just not the stadium capacity currently.
Click to expand...
If you do have a bigger catchment area, that's not reflected in your attendances. So that's worse support, not better support, as a percentage of catchment area.
 
Paul3845 said:
If you do have a bigger catchment area, that's not reflected in your attendances. So that's worse support, not better support, as a percentage of catchment area.
Click to expand...

Our stadium is not big enough for us.

Anyway I never said we had better support than Sunderland, that'd be a really stupid thing to say.

Have a good night.
 
Perryqhill said:
Yes we were selling out and it pretty much paid for itself over the following years.

People will go on about it meaning we couldn't sign players or some other nonsense, but it was tied to a long term loan (as the stadium was) and Reid was never denied funds.


We bought one - Hutchinson in 2000, funnily enough the same year the extension opened.
Click to expand...

In no time at all we went from it being nailed on we would poach Sinclair from West Ham to them taking Hutchison instead and then we stupidly let Rae leave as well.
 
A top half Prem Sunderland could attract 45k with 3k aways. A Sunderland with a big takeover and Champs league ambition (yep, never gonna happen), would see us need an extension to 55k. The reality is we will probably at best become a bottom half prem side at some point, with potential for crowds of around 40-47 depending on the occasion. The extension was definitely needed. If it remained 42k, thats 39k SAFC at the time. Not enough.
 
ir35 said:
F#cking mentalists on here at times, let’s stop fans being able to watch some games so the ground looks full more often. The extension has meant thousands and thousands of supporters have had the chance to watch games they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, it blows my mind we have supporters who don’t think that’s a good thing.
Click to expand...
A few fans fail to realise that if we had a smaller capacity and selling out every game then our prices wouldn't have been as low as they've been. If we constantly sold out with a smaller capacity then prices would be increased as it's all about supply and demand. Though increasing prices may price out some fans so they could still end up with empty seats if demand drops.

The SOL has over 80% available to concession prices yet many other grounds only have certain areas. These were the early bird prices for SOL and that's Brighton's tickets this season below ours. Compare the prices for anyone aged 18-21 given our prices were £165 (it was £180 this season to new fans) in over 80% of the lower bowl. Most of Brighton's ground is £275 to £380 for U18s as there just a few section for the £150 tickets in ZONE F. This is part of the reason why they get £20m in gate revenue whereas we got less than half of that even with around 10,000 more average attendance. I think other clubs such as Leeds, Sheff Wed, Leicester also do similar as some clubs don't really give big concessions to anyone over 18, nor is it available in most of the 4 stands of the ground.

Logon or register to see this image


The larger capacity of SOL allows for crowd fluctuation without the club fleecing the fans and just increasing prices due to demand exceeding supply. This is already happening at the mags and it will only get worse for them as the cheaper tickets be increased or there becomes less of them available.

Look at Boro's prices here for the early bird renewals as 18-21 year olds is a minimum £310-£360 so nearly double our prices.

You must be logged on to see external links

Birmingham are £260 for anyone new fan 16 years or older and there's many other clubs like this as very few have a pricing structure like SAFC thanks to the size of the SOL. Look at Sheff Wed prices HERE

You must be logged on to see external links

Here's Southampton's prices from 2021 (they've gone down slightly since being relegated) and again it's a limited area for the 18+ year olds but they still get 30,000 crowds near capacity even in the Championship. This is one reason why the comparing of crowds like for like just by the numbers themselves is sometimes just dick waving. It's not as some other clubs would get higher crowds if they had bigger capacity grounds and a similar pricing structure to ours and we'd get smaller crowds if we had pricing structures similar to them. Thankfully we don't do that and it allows just about everyone an option to get a ticket to watch the 'working mans game' and not be priced out due to the greedy owners/players etc.

Logon or register to see this image
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top